Dragstrips Making Hard Decisions In Challenging Circumstances

Jason Fiorito, president of Pacific Raceways, could have taken the easy way out.

“I’m sitting on the last large, undeveloped, industrially zoned piece of property in King County [home to Washington State’s Seattle]. A year ago, I easily could have taken an obnoxiously large check for the property by a big, multi-billion-dollar commercial-development company,” he said.

“And I told them, ‘Listen, you’re talking about hallowed ground here,” Fiorito said of the 320-acre facility southeast of Seattle. “Dale Earnhardt won the last NASCAR event here in 1985. This is a place that Mario Andretti and Phil Hill and Al Unser raced on the road course. This is a place that Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney and Kenny Bernstein and all the big names in drag racing have raced. You’re talking about something I’ve been walking around on since I was a little kid. Not all returns on investments are monetary. I know you don’t understand me telling you no, but the answer is not just no but **** no. Not on my watch. Take your money and spend it somewhere else. This is a regional asset.’ And they left, shaking their heads, going, ‘I just don’t understand how this guy thinks.’”

How he thinks is clear. He said, “We don’t want to be another track that drops off the map.” And that is the challenge in the Camping World Drag Racing Series, which since 2018, has lost tracks at Englishtown, N.J.; Commerce, Ga.; and Baytown, Texas – all in major markets (New York, Atlanta, Houston). The Chicago market was empty for three years. Virginia Motorsports Park won’t be back in 2023. And next February, Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz., will host its final race. So the Phoenix market is set to go away, too, by 2024.

Photo courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

Sporty Bandimere told Dragzine in an April 24 email that the latest rumor that Bandimere Speedway, on the outskirts of Denver, also will disappear to commercial development “is simply a rumor.” He wrote, “What I can tell you is that Bandimere Speedway gets inquiries of this type every month or two and has for years. Development in Jefferson County [Colorado] and specifically a stone’s throw away from the track is quickly changing the landscape. We have always strived to be proactive to control our own destiny, and we will continue to do that in the future. Our focus has always remained the same: to operate and run America’s premier…